Game Offers: Types and Ways of Their Testing

Computer game fans frequently purchase resources in the game they liked and pay real money for this. Why does it happen? There are many reasons for this.

The main reason for such an action is an internal push of a user and the offers are one of the most popular tools used for developing the push to buy something in a game.

An in-game offer is a special offer to make a purchase for real money inside a game, on favorable conditions for a client, and it’s aimed at increasing the demand for products or services offered inside a game.

The main purpose of offers

Offers – it’s a special marketing method, on which all the sales are based. Offers help to increase the number of users that make in-game purchases.

Developers create an interesting offer to force users to make their first payment and then, according to psychologists, it’s more they are more likely to buy something once again.

Moreover, a developer may foster an in-game product sale.

For example, a new important function is added to a game but it’s paid. And in this case, a so-called unique offer whose number is limited arises.

This, obviously, attracts the gamers who have previously bought something and also those who intend to do this for the first time.

And finally, using offers helps to save the time of a user on achieving a result. An offer suggests an appropriate resource at a reasonable price when and where it’s needed. A gamer understands that it’s very profitable for him/her to make such a purchase, therefore, does this without a doubt.

Types of offers

Discount offers

1. Sale. It’s the discounts for various products, including currency. In most cases, these offers are used to encourage selling the most expensive products in a game. This type is used either permanently, or temporarily;
2. Special offer. Generally, it’s a one-time discount that is limited in time (it can be repeated from time to time.) Game products and services of any type (both currency and objects) can serve as a special offer. In this case, a timer serves as the time needed for making a decision or just encourages a gamer.
3. Discount. It’s the decrease in a product’s price that is made in quantity or percent ratio. And the discount is the most popular offer that is present in almost every free-to-play offer.
4. Holiday discount. It’s a discount price for a product, that depends on a particular date: St’ Valentine’s Day, Black Friday, International Women’s Day, New Year, etc.

Bonus offers

Bonus offers are as popular as discount offers.

Bonus – it’s a so-called increase in the quantity of the purchased products, without the change in a price. It’s most frequently used while buying currency and in special offers, to make gamers more interested in the products that are offered. Many of you may claim that it’s identical to a discount. We may disagree with you on this point since they are absolutely different things.

The most popular type of bonuses is used when selling in-game currency when a bonus equivalent is added to a common set of currencies and it reflects the profit of buying bonus sets.

Variety of Offers

Bonus offers: examples

1. Event bonus. It’s surprise gifts, raises that are built into a program, to execute particular game actions. For example, you decided to launch a currency sale, a special function a day before the start of an in-game event, where this function can come in handy.
   Bonus present. It’s a good tactic: you receive a present after paying for something. Its value directly depends on the size of the fee. For example, a trunk is a present and a user can receive resources needed for a game from it.

To make an offer appear, you should take the following actions, according to its type:

• Offers for the gamers that do not depend on whether they made purchases previously or not (they mostly appear automatically, after passing a tutorial);
• Offers for the clients who have previously made real purchases for money. They need to buy a certain resource for real money and then minimize and maximize an application or close it and then open it.
• Offers for those who have never made real in-game purchases. You don’t buy anything for money and then minimize (maximize) it or close it and then open it.

Main features of checking offer purchasing while testing the games

On such platforms as Google Play, iOS, macOS, a test account that is offered by a client’s company (in case they have it) is used.

On Amazon, Win8 (RT) test files (.json, .xml) that are offered by a client are used for making purchases; they are copied to a target directory (according to a type of game application).

An in-game offer – it’s a mandatory part of every game and it’s based on in-game sales.

The task of a game testing company while checking the offers is to test the appearance of necessary offers at a particular moment of a game (for example, after passing a game level) and also to control the money charge in a proper quantity and receiving the purchased resources inside a game, that corresponds to the description of the offer that is being tested.